


Hail to the Chief

by cereal



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 21:59:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8506981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal/pseuds/cereal
Summary: It does turn out, however, that helping that politician often comes with free pizza and that sleeping in the campaign office — whether or not it's because you don't have anywhere else to go — is the mark of a dedicated volunteer. (presidential campaign AU, with speechwriter-Killian and volunteer-Emma!)





	

**Author's Note:**

> This came out of almost nowhere at lunchtime yesterday, and I was hellbent on getting it done, because it's kind of timely. On the other hand, if you're reading this, and you're eligible and able to vote, but haven't done so yet, please go do that instead. :D (you can also visit this fic, and me, [over here on Tumblr](http://allrightfine.tumblr.com/post/152906222836/fic-hail-to-the-chief-11-au-captain-swan)!)

It's not really altruism that led her here.

Or, well, not _entirely_ altruism.

Because while you can be hungry, tired, and homeless and still want good things for the country, you have to prioritize, and finding yourself a place to sleep for the night beats finding a rich politician a place to sleep for the next four years.

It does turn out, however, that helping that politician often comes with free pizza and that sleeping in the campaign office — whether or not it's because you don't have anywhere else to go — is the mark of a dedicated volunteer.

Dedicated enough to accidentally end up on the payroll.

And _that_ is what actually led her here.

To election night in New York City and Killian Jones’ hand on her breast in the moment after they call Nevada for Mills.

(Of course, a lot of stuff happened in between.)

&&.

No one asks Emma Swan who she’s going to vote for.

In fact, no one asks Emma Swan much of anything, except for things like whether she’s looking for a good time or whether she’s going to actually buy something while occupying the coffeehouse’s table for hours.

But today — today is different, because today Emma Swan is asked, “Do you want to make a difference?”

It comes from a guy in a beat-up Blur t-shirt, with an accent that she thinks sounds British, but not like the Queen, less...polished somehow, but definitely British, or English, or something, which is why she doesn’t even initially connect it to a U.S. election at all.

(And why would she? It’s _June_.)

So what she says in response is, “No, thanks.”

And she tries to keep walking, but the crosswalk is red and she only gets a few feet before running into a huge crowd of pedestrians, stopping her progress and allowing Blur T-Shirt to catch right up.

“I’m sorry, love, did you say _no_ , you _don’t_ want to make a difference?”

Emma nods tightly, keeping her eyes forward, hands pulling down the threadbare cuffs of her cardigan to fit over her fingers before gripping the straps of her bag. It’s early yet, and chilly, not even 8 a.m., which explains the amount of pedestrians in front of her that are wearing suits.

She’d spent the night in Central Park, too anxious to do much actual sleeping. She’d been in and out of weekly hotels and daily hotels and hostels lately, scraping by with money from busking and a few — honestly, truly, only a few (because she won’t go back to prison) — strategic pocket-pickings, but her luck had finally run out last night.

It’s actually a miracle she’d lasted this long.

Arriving back in New York just in time to watch the ball drop and usher in the new year, she’d been able to afford a few months in a shared apartment (though her name appeared nowhere on a lease) before finally making the transition back to officially homeless in April, unceremoniously locked out of the apartment and without legal recourse.

She’s not actually sure why she ended up in New York at all, but the years were slipping by in Phoenix, waitress gig to waitress gig and sometimes when she looked up at the sky and the air was like a furnace, it felt like she was still in prison, and she just — she had to leave.

And so she did, on a bus — New York the first destination she could afford that would offer her a view of the water, her one must-have, as around water, it definitely wouldn't feel like Phoenix.

Her lone bag looked military, one of those army green duffles with backpack straps, and while it probably _was_ military at some point — she had no idea about its life prior to finding it in a thrift shop — _she_ wasn't.

That didn't stop her from collecting the free meals sent her way in Denny’s across America, as thank you for her service. She'd vowed each time to make it up to the universe, to get her feet under her and buy enough meals for veterans to pay off the debt, but she was nowhere near ready yet, still sometimes standing as rigidly as she could in diners in the hope it would happen again.

Her rigid stance now is for an entirely different reason, as Blur T-Shirt continues to scrutinize her.

“All right, what about a breakfast burrito? Do you _want_ that?”

Her eyes slip to the side despite herself and Blur T-Shirt takes it as an opportunity to continue.

“Or do you have somewhere else to be with all your earthly possessions strapped to your back, sweetheart?”

Her whole head turns in his direction this time, eyebrows raising in an attempt to tell him to _fucking be cool_ , before one of the suits hears him.

“Yeah, I know what that is,” he says, nodding at her bag, and she takes a minute to catalog his face — his nose is a little too big, eyes a dark hazel, and he looks to be her age, maybe a few years older. “Had one of those meself not too long ago — but now I’ve got _breakfast burritos_.”

She feels her right knee unlock, her body swaying toward him as her stomach grumbles.

“That’s a lass,” he says. “Come on now.”

And when he turns to go, she follows.

&&.

His name is Will Scarlet, he’s not “a bloody American,” and he puts her on phone duty.

It takes several minutes (and two breakfast burritos that tasted like they were made by God himself) for Emma to actually clock what she’s gotten herself into.

She’s somehow volunteered for the Regina Mills presidential campaign, and she’s found herself at election HQ, right in the heart of Manhattan.

Will has her put her bag in one of the few offices with a door, assuring her that the guy it belongs to won’t mind — “He’s a real ‘in the trenches’ sort, Jones is. Only ever uses his office when he's writing locally.”

She doesn’t know what that means, and doesn’t bother thinking too much about it, instead doing the mental math on the number of burritos left versus the number of people she can currently see.

If they’re not all gone in twenty minutes, she’s taking a third.

Will hands her a script, directs her to a desk, and she begins.

Halfway through the fourth call (with eighteen — fucking _eighteen_ — hang ups in between), she realizes she agrees with a lot of the policies she’s telling these random people about.

Like, she agrees with them a lot.

In a sort of abstract way, she’d thought about voting for Archie Hopper (or supporting Archie Hopper, in spirit, at least — gotta have an address to vote, after all, and probably not be a fucking felon), the liberal guy from Vermont that seemed to have some good ideas, if not ones entirely grounded in like, achievable things.

But she’d learned literally last night, from a newspaper she’d found on a bench as the sun set in Central Park, that he’d lost the Democratic nomination.

At the time, she hadn’t paid it much attention, too worried about what was going to happen to her, personally, once night finally fell, but now, safe in this office and her stomach full of breakfast burritos, she thinks maybe her “in spirit” vote will go to Regina Mills.

And her actual vote? Well, she’s voting for milking this for all it’s worth.

&&.

It takes five full days for anyone to notice she hasn’t gone home. There are swarms of volunteers at literally almost all hours, working nearly around the clock, and so when she falls asleep in a bean bag to one set of faces, she almost always wake up to another.

She carefully changes clothes in the bathroom, washing up in the sinks, applying deodorant and borrowing dry shampoo from a girl from Brooklyn, who took the time to carefully write the name of it down on a post-it for Emma, like Emma had money for Sephora.

(She’d tucked it in her pocket anyway, ‘Prêt-à-Powder’ written in handwriting that looked like a font, with the accents and everything, because it’s nice, in a way, the bond inherent with these other volunteers.

Most are young like her, and while many of them speak of their jobs and their families and their dates and their kombucha, they’re all here to help Regina Mills get elected president, and the idealistic way they speak of it, of the future, it’s a lot like Emma thinks about her own life — optimism and hope colliding with the harsh reality of the now, and the what-could-be, if things go the wrong way.)

It’s actually working incredibly well though, her accidental volunteerism, Will crowing proudly over her every time they tally up the number of connected calls and promised votes each night.

Which is, of course, why she gets caught.

She’s just hung up from the last call of her “shift” (in so far as someone who never leaves has _shifts_ ) when a guy she knows actually works — like for _money_ — for the campaign approaches her.

He’s wearing a suit, an expensive-looking suit, that fits him like suits fit when guys have actual tailors and stuff, not that Emma’s known many of them, and though this particular guy is ( _clearly_ ) handsome in this particular suit, the sight of him (and the fucking suit) is unnerving.

Context clues would say this _might_ be Killian Jones, he’s gone in and out of the office with the Killian Jones name plaque more than a few times, and she knows because she keeps an eye on that office, her duffle bag still tucked in the corner like it is.

But every time anyone has spoken to him, or gotten his attention, or really done anything that might confirm his identity, she’s on the phone.

And if she’s not sleeping, purposely hiding, or shoving down some of the food someone had ordered as a campaign contribution, she’s on the phone — because working hard, with her head down, is the only way any of this is going to continue.

Apparently even that wasn’t enough though, because here’s this suit guy, and he’s saying, in an accent not unlike Will’s but not entirely similar either, “Hey, hey, lass, hello? When was the last time you went home?”

His face is slightly blurred in front of her, she’s having trouble focusing, the panic rising in her throat as visions of fucking Central Park at night dance in her head.

“Um,” she stops and clears her throat as the lie solidifies on her tongue. “Last night?”

“I don’t think that’s true,” he says, but it’s almost nervous, the way he says it, his fingers scratching behind his ear. “I, uh, definitely saw you last night.”

Oh, fuck. So they’d suspected even last night — goddamn it, she’d been so _careful_ , quietly disappearing for a few hours to a bookstore or to take a walk. That was a third day addition to her plan, so that even those volunteers as dedicated as she appeared to be wouldn’t notice.

Still, she has to play this cool.

“Well, yeah, I probably went home after that.”

“I don't think you did.”

“How would you know?”

From across a bank of desks, Will jumps in. “Because he thinks you’re the prettiest volunteer.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah,” Will says. “He knows where you are because he thinks you're pretty, same way as I know where Belle is.” He swivels his head around, pointing to where Belle is texting quickly on one of the HQ cell phones, before turning back to Emma and winking. “See?”

“Sod off, Scarlett. Emma, was it? Would you come with me?”

She nods, blood rushing in her ears, and stands to follow as he walks her into Killian Jones’ office, making a decision on the way that if there's even the tiniest kernel of truth to Will’s assertion that this guy thinks she's pretty, that she's gonna run with it.

“So,” she says flirtily, dancing a finger across the desktop. “You're Killian Jones?” He nods and she takes the seat he's offered her. “And you think I'm pretty?”

He slips into the seat opposite her, the desk between them littered with paper and an expensive-looking MacBook.

He still looks nervous, and she hopes, prays, really, that this is about attraction, but it's starting to seem like a foolish hope, and she waits for the hammer to drop.

“Emma, Ms.—?”

“Swan.”

“Right, Ms. Swan, I do think you're pretty —”

She sits up straighter.

“— but I also, more importantly, think you're homeless.”

The blood in her ears reaches a nearly deafening roar, and she rushes to say something, _anything_.

“I — what? Why? That’s crazy, why would you think that?”

Killian points, with his whole open palm, like a fucking Disneyland employee, toward the corner where she knows her duffle sits, and it’s only because she _knows_ what’s over there that she doesn’t look, staying focused enough on his hand to realize it’s not actually made of like, skin — it’s a prosthetic.

Rather than get caught staring at it, she meets his eye just in time for him to deliver what he probably considers to be his crushing blow. “Volunteers don’t come with sleepover bags,” he says, and before she can reply, he continues. “And let’s just say I know the signs.”

There’s a sudden fury burning in her veins, all her nerves turned to anger as this fucking _asshole_ draws out whatever shit is coming her way next.

“No, let’s not ‘just say’ that. That’s a pretty heavy accusation, Mr. Jones, and from someone working for such a _liberal_ campaign.”

Between them, his laptop makes a noise, an email message, and he glances at it briefly before shutting the lid of the computer.

“I am not making a value judgment, Ms. Swan, but I am going to ask if I can help.”

Whatever she was expecting, it wasn’t this. Frankly, she was expecting to be unceremoniously asked to leave.

“What?”

“Ms. Swan —”

“Can you just call me Emma, ‘Ms. Swan’ makes me feel like I'm in trouble. Unless... _am_ I in trouble?”

“Have you done anything to warrant being in trouble?”

“Well, you just said — you called me...and I'm not saying it's true, but —”

“ _Emma_ , if it is true, it's not anything you'd be in trouble for, especially from such a — how did you put it? — _liberal_ campaign.”

She's feeling extremely wrongfooted, confused about what she should confirm, confused about what she should say, confused by why she's even here at all.

“Uh. Okay. Well, if I'm not trouble, then —?”

Killian wheels his chair closer into his desk, flipping his laptop back open and swiping at the trackpad a few times.

“As I was saying, I am offering to help, but that help is not _entirely_ free.”

The way he lingers over the word sends her brain tumbling through headline after headline of political sex scandals and she sits up straighter, bristling at the perceived implication.

“Listen, buddy, if I wanted to trade _that_ , I'd find somewhere else to do it.”

“What?” Killian’s brow furrows and she sees the exact moment he gets her drift. “Oh, bloody hell, no, nothing like _that_.”

Her shoulders drop, the fight instinct receding while the confusion still hangs on. “Oh, okay, it was just — you said...Will said...I was pretty and...I don't know.”

Honestly, what the _fuck_ even is this entire conversation?

“Right,” Killian says. “Let’s start over. Emma, do you know who I am?”

“You're Killian Jones.” She picks up the small name plate on his desk and turns it around so he can see it.

There's a small anchor adorning either side of his name, and a few more nautical touches decorating his office now that she's looking for them — a miniature ship’s wheel holding his business cards and another anchor that must be magnetic with paper clips stuck to it. “Possibly also some sort of fisherman?”

He laughs, plucking the nameplate from her hand and running a thumb over one of the anchors before handing it back to her. “I can see why you'd think that, and you're not that far off — former Royal Navy, actually — but _here_ , I am a speechwriter. Chief speechwriter, if we're forgoing humility.”

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. All throughout the office people on Buzzfeed, on Facebook, on fucking Tumblr, and she couldn't have taken one damn minute to google her coworkers?

“Oh, wow, congratulations,” she says, only realizing her nerves had begun to dissipate when they come roaring back. This isn't some temporary volunteer captain gig for him, this is very much this guy’s actual _career_.

“No, no, it's not like that, lass. I owe much of my success to my brother, who paved the way for the Joneses in American politics on President Obama’s first campaign.”

“Okay.” She's at a complete loss for how to continue this conversation, or, honestly, how to enter the one he apparently thinks they're having.

“But I do have a _bit_ of a way with words, and that, Emma, is where I need your help.”

“I'm sorry?”

“There are logs of the calls you all make, did you know that?” He spins his laptop around, showing her her volunteer number and what look like sound files.

“Ahh...no.”

“Well, there are. And you, since very early on, have been going off-script.”

“Oh, god. Um — but you — you said I wasn't in trouble!” She hadn't actually meant to do it, really, and it had happened so naturally she didn't even realize it at first, but it was just so much _easier_ to have a conversation with people using her own language, and she'd definitely kept the heart of it the same, she _knows_ she did.

“And you're not,” he insists. “Truly. There's not a body out there that can argue with the numbers you put up.”

“Okay, so…?”

“So, Emma Swan, how would you like a job?”

The nameplate she was somehow still holding clatters to his desk.

“What?”

“The way you speak — to millennials in particular — is something we’re missing, _I’m_ missing, and I’d like to offer you a position to help me fix that.

You’d also have to do some light transcribing, I’m pretty good with the dictation software by now, and pecking things out one-handed where I need to, but, well, I can get a little...passionate. I need someone who can keep up with typing when I’m like that.”

He shrugs to finish it all off, like he hasn’t just said a series of increasingly insane things.

“You’re joking.”

“I am not.”

And Emma Swan, she of the prison GED, laughs.

(And accepts.)

&&.

Being on the official campaign payroll comes with lots of things Emma couldn’t even have begun to imagine, most notably a room and board stipend.

She’s expected to travel with the campaign, same as Killian, and though the hotels they put them up in aren’t much, they’re clean and have beds.

There’s an official campaign cellphone, not one of the HQ ones used for texting campaigns, but one just for her, and not even just to make calls, but to take them (mostly from Killian, but still).

There’s a MacBook that costs more than anything she’s ever owned in her life, her poor yellow Bug still in storage in Phoenix included.

There’s health insurance — fucking _health insurance_.

And it’s all happened so fast, in June, she was homeless, and now it’s August, and she’s working for the _president_.

Well, _almost_ president. Fingers crossed.

(But still, back in July, Emma had helped pen the speech for the VP pick announcement — a senator out of Virginia named, hilariously, Robin Hood — the VP pick for the _first female candidate of a major party_ , and she — _Emma Swan_ — had helped write the words that came out of Regina Mills’ mouth.

Win or lose, that speech is gonna be somewhere someday, an exhibit at the Smithsonian or _something_ , and Emma is going to linger by it like she’s Captain fucking America.)

Plus, she’s met Regina Mills several times now, and though she’s tough, she knows her shit, and she wants to do real good, has _done_ real good already, and it’s why every time Emma sits down next to Killian, their MacBooks between them, and she tells him what her peers ( _their_ peers, really, Killian’s only 30, but he doesn’t know “kids today,” or so he says) want to hear, it doesn’t feel like a scam, it feels like hope.

If Robert Gold wins, something that’s more of a possibility than it rightly should be, there’s no hope for anyone, and though the stakes were more or less the same back in June, she actually knows them now, and _that_ feels terrifying.

&&.

Work is work though, however much it feels like a fever dream.

She has to spend her first paycheck on a meager set of business clothes for when they attend rallies and stuff — watching the speech- _presenting_ part of their speech- _writing_ efforts.

After a few aborted attempts in various suburban strip malls, she ends up swallowing her pride and asking Killian to help her figure out where to even shop.

It becomes very quickly apparent that she’s not making Brooks Brothers money, or even Banana Republic money, but she finds a couple pairs of trousers, a couple skirts, and a couple button-down shirts on sale (with an _extra_ 40% off the sale price, something she’d pointed out to Killian with no small amount of glee) at the Gap, and coupled with the few plain shirts she’d been lugging around in her duffle bag, she mostly manages to look professional.

(And the fact that she’s making money, at a job, at all, is a goddamn miracle, if you ask her.)

Plus there’s a lot to learn, and a lot to remember.

She’d been a good student on occasion (especially when it looked like good grades might keep her in a house longer), and in prison there hadn’t been much else to do besides read, even after she’d gotten her GED, but this — and Killian — is like a whole other level.

There’s a lot of time-consuming stuff, like the transcription, which he’d really undersold, making it sound like a chore, when really it’s getting her hands dirty in the best way possible — being the one to actually put the speech to paper, the one Regina will eventually read.

There’s triple-checking the definition of a word that she and Killian already agree on the definition of, because if they’re wrong, and Regina says ‘nonsecular’ when she definitely means ‘secular,’ everyone’s fucked.

There’s arguing over the subjective, almost, on occasion, arguing over literal poetry, and there’s a shitload of facts and figures and man-on-the-street interviews to sift through.

It’s stressful, but she’s grateful. She’s so _incredibly_ grateful.

Killian though, Killian doesn’t get stressed, except for when he does, except for when it’s the middle of the night and the 24-hour news channel is on in some no-name town and some no-name hotel, and he’s pushing his hand through his hair and pacing, pacing, pacing.

Those are the nights he talks about growing up in England, about the American Dream, about the future, and while sometimes on those nights she’s brain-fried, unable to do anything but appreciate how well his jeans fit him, sometimes she listens and takes notes.

It’s often those speeches, those little soundbites, his passion and her twist on it, that get tweeted and re-tweeted and posted as graphics on the official Mills Facebook, and _that’s_ what truly feels like a dream.

Her words — _her words_ — in front of millions of people, right alongside Killian’s words, and it’s so, _so_ fucking much.

She starts her own Facebook then, just to be able to share those posts, and it’s wild to watch the faces and friend requests trickle again. A foster kid with a double digit amount of foster homes, she didn’t realize how many people she knew, but they’re there, liking her statuses and cheering her on and infuriating her (and, presumably, de-friending her).

Killian’s got his own Facebook, privacy locked to the fucking teeth, but he friends her back, and she goes deep into the stalking after going deep into a bottle of wine one night — finding pictures of him with two hands, of Liam, back in England now, raising Killian’s niece and nephew, of a ship called The Jolly Roger, of a dog and, inexplicably, years back, untagged and almost ( _almost_ ) unfindable, of Milah Gold.

It eats her up for a week until she finally tells him in a Chipotle in Fargo.

(“If I can find it, it’s not hidden well enough.”)

He doesn’t talk about it then, but he does two nights later, fresh off a rally in New Mexico where Gold’s supporters had swarmed and the police had to take action.

It is not a happy story, the story of him and Milah Gold, but she understands unhappy stories, even ones that end with people missing a literal hand.

So, she tells him about Neal — more than she’s told anyone, ever, about Neal — and nearly cries when midway through the story, she realizes there’s no way to end it without mentioning prison, so she does.

He doesn’t even blink, and she realizes he _knew_.

He knew and he hired her anyway.

(“There’s a plan if it comes out, Emma, but you have to know we won’t let it.”)

When she registers to vote, it’s because he’d had her doing research on disenfranchisement among felons, and she realizes that no such law exists in New York, and that no such speech was upcoming.

He helps her do it right then, online in a hotel room in the middle of Iowa, with Killian’s New York address listed as hers.

She’s never set foot in his apartment, neither of them have been back to New York in weeks, but somehow it feels okay, it feels right, that he’s her home, and that, too, is terrifying.

&&.

They go to Phoenix in September.

It’s hard, it’s _painful_ , and Killian lets her stay on the bus hours after she should’ve been out and checked into the hotel.

He joins her with his laptop in the early evening, sliding into the booth that backs their little all-purpose bus table and they put the finishing touches on tomorrow morning’s speech.

When they’re done, he slips his cellphone from his pocket, propping it in his prosthetic and tapping at the screen for a few moments, before looking up.

“There’s a taxi six minutes away. You can take it where you want to go, and you can take it by yourself, or you can take it with me.”

It takes the entire six minutes for her to decide, tugging Killian into the backseat before she can doubt herself, and blurting out an address at the same time.

They arrive at All-Purpose Storage and Truck Rental at three minutes past 7 p.m. and they’re on the road in her Bug by a quarter-after.

She drives and she talks, and Killian listens and he talks back.

They’ve told so many stories already, their own stories to each other, and the Mills story to the nation, but this — this is all the in-between.

Her foster homes, and his shitty dad, her fuck-ups and his missteps, the phantom pain in missing pieces (both real and metaphorical), everything either one of them can think of, while on a makeshift tour of all the dive restaurants she’d waited in, quick drive-bys of a life that haunts her as election day looms.

They finally stop to find food for themselves, at a Denny’s, and the very last of it comes pouring out, the way she’d pretended to be a veteran for a fucking Moons Over My Hammy on a bus trip across America.

(When he bangs on her door at 5 a.m., she opens it to the sight of him and fourteen boxes of donuts.

They take another cab, this time to the VFW, and they drop it all off, Killian counting out loud each person that takes a donut.

“Debt repaid, Swan.”

And she looks at him, his slim-fitting suit and his kind blue eyes, and she knows there’s another debt on her hands — one she’d be glad to spend the rest of her life paying.)

&&.

There is, of course, the small matter of him finding her pretty, and her finding his ass, like, fucking perfect.

And his face.

And his hair.

And even his stupid grandpa cardigan.

They’re somewhere around Portland (Oregon, not Maine) in the beginning of October when Regina Mills herself intervenes on behalf of Emma’s wardrobe, shoving a fat stack of dry cleaning bags into Emma’s arms.

“I can't wear any of these anymore, and though Robert Gold would have you believe I shouldn't have worn them in the first place, I think you may find value in them.”

It turns into a mini fashion show in Emma’s room, outfit after outfit of designer blouses and designer blazers and designer pant suits, all carefully separated and rematched so as not to be immediately recognizable as something of Regina’s, paraded in front of Killian and a box of pizza.

“I like this one, love, though I'm not sure about this bit,” Killian says, leaning forward to tug at the bow knotted around her neck.

“Really? I kind of like it, I think it makes me look old-fashioned.”

“Well, I think it makes you look like Belle.”

Emma turns back to see herself in the mirror above the dresser. They'd been back and forth to the New York offices a handful of times now, Will and Belle running as HQ captains, and while Will seemed to have an endless supply of band t-shirts because, “they can't see me on the bleeding phones,” Belle was usually dressed pretty professionally — including, all right, yeah — several blouses with bows.

Emma fusses with the bow, tying and retying it, trying to get it to lay more symmetrically.

“That's not necessarily a bad thing,” Emma says. “She is the prettiest volunteer in the New York office, right?”

Killian rises to meet her, swatting her hands out of the way to fix her bow once and for all.

“No,” he says, smoothing the fabric down. “She is not.”

“Oh, no?” Emma says, and it’s flirty, she knows, but they do that a lot, both of them. “Who is?”

He plucks at her collar before dropping his hand to settle lightly at her waist, and she can see the moment his mood shifts. He catches her eye and something...changes.

It happens sometimes when they’re writing, a new angle will strike him, and suddenly they’re eyeball deep in rewrites until sunrise, but she’s never quite had it happen _to_ her, _about_ her.

She’s not sure what’s going to happen next.

“Don't you know, Emma?” he breathes. “It's _you_.”

(Oh, god.)

His palm is warm through the thin, silky fabric of her blouse and while they're tactile friends most of the time, hands squeezed in triumph and shoulders slept on — he once let her decorate his entire prosthetic in easy-cling _Mills for President_ stickers, for fuck’s sake — this feels different.

It _is_ different, that’s pretty clear.

Which is why she panics.

“ _Please_ ,” she snorts, in a clear derailment move. “You seen Ruby Lucas? Started off doing the food delivery and has moved her way up to phone lead? She’s the prettiest volunteer in _all_ the offices. Maybe the world.”

He steps closer to her, narrowing what was already an indescribably narrow space. “I don’t care about Ruby, Emma.”

“No?” And she tries to back up, really she does, but he's warm and he smells so good and he's just — fuck. He's _him_. “What about this — let me know if this does anything for you — these bows?” She gestures to her neck, the fabric tied there, and when she moves to drop her hand, he catches it with his own, pressing them both to his chest. “Belle told me the proper name for them is ‘pussy bows.’”

For a second, she can see a flash of regular Killian, less sexy Killian — or, well, _regular_ sexy Killian, because he always is, but not like _this_ — she sees it in the half grin he gives her and she sees it in the ( _oh, Jesus Christ_ ) clear opening she's given him.

And she can also see the exact moment regular-Killian passes it right by, leaving it for _this_ Killian to take.

“ _Pussy_ bows, you say?”

She nods, trying, without actually trying, to pull her hand free of his. “Yeah, I mean, I know it's probably something way more innocent than it sounds, and I don't actually even like that word for — for _that_ , but —”

“What word do you like then?” He shifts his leg between both of hers, the heat of him blanketing her and centering low in her stomach.

“What?” she manages to say, the word breathy and unnecessary.

“Which word do you prefer?” His thigh pushes tighter into her, pressing against what they're apparently trying to name, and, _fuck_ , this escalated so quickly.

“I don't — Killian.”

“Come now, Swan, this is what we do — argue over word choice, play the synonym game. So, which is it? Not p —”

She can't, cannot possibly hear him say that word one more time, and in a rush to stop him, she blurts out her answer.

“Cunt.”

She can feel him rock back, and though his body doesn't appear, doesn't _feel_ like it actually moved, she can tell she's surprised him.

“Cunt,” he repeats back, and somehow, in his accent it sounds far less taboo, and far more dangerous.

“Yeah,” she says. “I guess.”

Then, when his leg rises just one tiny bit more, until she can feel the seam of her jeans pressed tight and hard against her core — against her _cunt_ , oh, god — she blurts out, “Why? We gonna use it in a speech?”

And that, inexplicably, is it, the bucket of ice water she didn't actually want.

He shifts back bodily, all of him separating from all of her in inches that feel like miles, and she sees him slip back into Killian Jones, speechwriter, and out of Killian Jones, man seducing a woman, all of it as fluid as the way he puts on a suit jacket.

For a second, she thinks he’s going to pretend like it didn’t happen, move back to the fashion show or the pizza or whatever the fuck they were doing alone in a hotel room in the dead of night, like always.

But then, par for the course tonight, he surprises her.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he says, and he sounds pained, moving to drop down onto the edge of the bed, curled into himself with his head in his hand.

“Hey,” she says, stepping to stand in front of him and nudging his knee with her own. “I didn’t — I wasn’t exactly stopping you.”

“Yeah,” he scoffs, “because I’m your boss.”

Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t _that_ , and frankly _that_ , makes her furious.

“Killian Taft Jones, if you think for one second I’d let you — god, I don’t even know what you’re calling that in your head, but if _you_ think that _I_ thought you were taking advantage of me, and I _let_ you, because you’re my _boss_ , you’re fucking crazier than I thought you were.”

“Taft?” he says, peeking up over the edge of his fingers to look at her. “ _Taft_?”

She shrugs, the fact that that’s what he latched onto not surprising in the least — that’s why she’d done it, after all. “Well, you still haven’t told me your middle name, so I’m just gonna substitute presidents until you do.”

“Yeah, but — but _Taft_? What about Roosevelt? Truman? Carter?”

“Taft is the only person to have been Chief Justice _and_ President.”

“Oh,” he says, and his hand slips to his face, scratching at his beard in apparent thought. “Is that why you picked it?”

She laughs, shoving him over so she can sit next to him at the foot of the bed. “No, not even a little, I just think it’s fun to say.”

“All right, Emma Van Buren Swan.”

“There’s that Killian Fillmore Jones spirit I so admire.”

“Listen, Emma — Coolidge — if you — if that made you too uncomfortable, and you wanted to...leave, I’d understand.”

She watches as he recedes back into himself, measure by measure as his sentence unfolds, and god, that’s not what she wants _at all_.

“Killian. Killian, fucking look at me.”

It takes a second, a long second, but he does, squaring his shoulders so he’s looking at her full on, ready to take the punishment he clearly thinks is coming with dignity.

“If you were a president, you’d be Babe-raham Lincoln,” she says.

For a moment, his eyes light up with the joke, but then — just as quickly — they shutter. It's apparent he thinks she’s letting him off too easy.

“Jones, listen to me. You _are_ a Babe-raham Lincoln, and whatever just happened, and whatever happened before it, I was there with you, like, _right_ next to you.”

He snorts, in the middle of some full on self-flagellation — a phrase she literally only knows _because of him_.

“Fine,” she continues. “Okay, actually, I don’t know if you remember Atlanta, but that volunteer coordinator, what was her name? _Tinkerbell_? She gave me her number to give to you, and I did not, I did not give it to you, so sometimes I’m not next to you, sometimes I’m fucking in _front_ of you, keeping lovelorn pixies away.”

He smiles then, just the corner of his mouth slipping up, still the slightest bit forlorn, and moves to dig into his pants pocket.

Before she can even ask, he’s pulling out a crumpled piece of paper, Mills/Hood stationery from the looks of it, and smoothing it out against his thigh.

“Humbert — just today, actually — he gave me this for you,” he says, and he hands her the wrinkled note.

There, in blue pen, is a phone number. One that apparently belongs to the phone lead here in Portland, not that it matters, not that it could possibly ever matter.

“So I guess I'm front of you, too.” He shrugs.

“Listen, for real, Jones. Listen. Whatever this is —”

(And she knows what she thinks it is, it's a terrifying word, one that lights up unbidden in the front of her brain every time he slips a Pop Tart from her hand and replaces it with a grapefruit, every time he reads back what they've just written, his passion overflowing from every accented word, every time he makes sure the very youngest and the very oldest can see the stage clearly, every time he — fuck, every time he _breathes_.)

“— it was there before today, and it'll be there November 8th.”

“What?” She's got his full attention now, she can tell from the way he's said just this one word, this is Killian Jones, paying attention to Emma Swan.

“Yeah, November 8th, Election Day, maybe you've heard of it? And there's either gonna be a little while, or maybe a lifetime depending on the results, but hopefully just a little while, where we don't have we don't officially have jobs anymore, where you're not my boss. And if this keeps — like I think it will — we’ll pick it up then, okay?”

His eyes glance down at his watch, the Omega one she knows was a present from Liam, because she knows all sorts of stuff Iike that about him, as he does about her, and she can see him doing the math. They know — they all know — the exact number of days til Election Day, but she watches him count it out anyway.

“November 8th,” he says.

“November 8th,” she confirms.

(It'll keep.)

&&.

The middle of October is the toughest week she's had on this campaign, in this job, maybe even in her _life_ , and with a life like hers, that's saying something.

But the final debate is every bit as scary as every first day of a new school, every foster father, every time she counted out her change and found herself too short to buy dinner.

Because somehow Robert Gold feels like the living embodiment of all of that.

Regina is on them constantly, going over sound bites and rehearsing her answers, raising her voice one minute and going deadly silent the next.

For as hard as Emma has worked over the last few months, Regina has worked twice that hard over the last few _decades_ , and it’s all in jeopardy because of a dangerous sack of shit wrapped up in hateful prejudices and terrible hair.

They're all on edge, Killian writing and drinking at the desk in whatever hotel room she's found herself in, calling out questions only to answer them himself, but still staunchly refusing to stay in his own room, which is something, she supposes.

By the time the debate actually comes around, she’s ready to fuck him or fight him at the drop of a hat, but as they sit in a makeshift green room in the halls of an events center in Las Vegas, she does neither, because there, on the closed-circuit TV, is Regina Mills, saying words that belong not to Killian or Emma or Regina herself, but words that belong to everyone, and they are words of _victory_.

&&.

The weeks before the election, Emma learns, are for carefully timed attacks and vitriolic warfare.

Killian never quite gives up the habit of staying in her room after the debate (and, frankly, neither of them quite get back _into_ the habit of sleeping much), and it’s almost entirely innocent, insofar as things can be innocent between two people with a confirmed attraction, but when he wakes her up from a light doze one morning in late October, the look on his face is enough to send the room spinning — and then he speaks.

Or, rather, his laptop does.

She’d known it was possible they’d come for her, but she thought the moment had passed, that this last stretch would be for the worst sorts of gossip and fear-mongering.

And it is, but it’s wrapped in _her_.

The commercial shows her at various rallies, almost always next to Killian, but often next to Regina, too, and the voiceover — oh, god, the fucking _voiceover_.

“The words of one crook in the mouth of another.”

There’s more, but that’s the gist, enough to make them all look like criminals, just by association with one actual criminal — her.

She locks herself in the hotel bathroom to get away from the computer, from the ad, from _Killian_ , and also to revisit her 1 a.m. Pop Tarts as they make their way out of her stomach and into the toilet bowl.

She feels sweaty and sick and in actual pain, unable to face anything, least of all Regina.

Which is exactly who shows up twenty minutes later.

There’s a new suit, and a press op, and it doesn’t feel over at all, but Regina says it is, and Robin says it is, and Killian says it is, and Emma, for the first time in her life, is grateful not only for the family she doesn’t have and therefore can’t disappoint, but also for the family she’s _found_ , who the world can’t defeat.

&&.

She hadn’t quite realized all those months ago that the New York headquarters were _headquarters_ -headquarters, the main one, but they were, and they are, and that’s where they all have spent this Election Day, intermittently glued to the TV and writing and re-writing since the polls opened on the east coast.

It’s nighttime now, the sun long set, but the lights are still bright in the offices, and they’ll stay that way clear through to sunrise, if all goes according to plan.

The early voting results had been favorable, but not by enough, and not in most of the battleground states.

Emma’s had it out for Florida ever since Neal and broken promises of Tallahassee, but if it doesn’t get its shit in order asap, she’s personally gonna hacksaw it away from the mainland, or possibly divide it up between Pennsylvania and North Carolina, states called for Mills hours ago.

Killian’s stayed close to her all evening, in a way Emma initially assumed was nerves, and then quickly realized was nerves _and_ anticipation.

She recognizes the combination because it’s the same one that’s been churning through her every minute she’s awake, and frankly, several of the ones she’s asleep.

There’s no victory lap in a campaign, not until it’s actually over, but this past week has felt like the closest they’ll get to one — all their greatest hits, _Killian Jones and Emma Swan Play Storybrooke Elementary’s Gymnasium_ , spread out for the world to see in TV commercials, online, in radio ads and billboards.

But without much new work to do, they’ve found themselves in those same routine hotel rooms, only this time no MacBooks sit between them.

  
This time it’s Killian’s hand resting lightly on her thigh, or Emma’s bra slid out from the sleeve of her t-shirt as they watch Fallon, it’s falling asleep together, at the same time, breathing the same air — it’s _tension_ , thick and warm and wonderful.

And it’s here, right now, Killian’s shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing his brace on one arm, and tanned, sinewy skin on the other, the muscles flexing and smoothing as his hand tightens around a novelty stress ball.

“How much you think it costs to make those?” Emma says, nodding at the small foam Robert Gold head losing its shape between Killian’s fingers.

“Why, you got somebody in mind?” Killian barely glances away from the TV mounted in the corner of his office, Wolf Blitzer pacing around his fancy set on the screen.

Killian’s feet are propped up on his desk as he tilts back in his chair, and while he looks relaxed, if ol’ Wolf says anything surprising, or Emma herself tries to leave this office, he’ll be up out of the chair in a heartbeat.

“Yeah, actually,” she says. “I was thinking _you_ — be nice to have a version of you I could put exactly where I wanted.”

Slowly Killian’s eyes shift from the TV to meet hers, a tiny, sexy smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Is there a particular place you would like my head, Emma? Perhaps between your —”

“Jones! Swan!” Regina’s voice seems to bounce off every corner of the office, but she doesn't sound upset, she sounds...pleased?

They're both in front of her in a matter of seconds, Emma trading in her heels for Vans hours ago and Killian’s wingtip-looking boots not uncomfortable in the first place.

(She _loves_ those boots, the way they looked lined up — always neatly — next to her shoes in various hotel room hallways throughout the country.)

“What's going on?” Killian says, his eyes tracking to find another TV among the volunteers crowding the main room.

There's one just behind where Will and Belle are standing, she knows, but they've got their arms wrapped around each other, effectively blocking the screen, and making Emma’s stomach twist with something like jealousy.

Her time will come — _their_ time will come — it will come _soon_ , and she has to believe it will come with a victory.

“Early reports are in from the West Coast,” Regina says and Emma and Killian both reach for their phones — had they received the same reports?

“I got a call,” Regina says, halting them both from grabbing their cells. “And they look —”

She pauses, steeling herself with a deep breath as something radiant flickers across her face.

“— they look _good_.”

Emma feels her hand swept up in Killian’s, a tight squeeze against her fingers.

“Do you want the speech?” Killian asks, and really, it’s a formality, any one of them could recite either of the speeches verbatim from memory at this point.

“Not yet,” Regina says. “But just — just have it ready.”

“Aye-aye, boss,” Killian says, and tugs Emma back to his office, shutting the door behind them.

The office window faces Killian’s desk dead on, which means, standing behind the door like they are, there's not a good view of them from the larger area, something she only realizes when Killian crowds her back against the wood.

“Jones?” she says, her voice sounding loud now that the noise outside is muted.

“It's almost over, Swan.” The words are quiet and measured, but she can still hear the way they're soaked in adrenaline, in barely-checked tension.

“Yeah,” she agrees, and she can see how her breath ghosts across his face as it ruffles the hair that’s fallen across his forehead.

“Wanna vote early?” He says, nudging his nose against hers.

She can barely nod before his mouth is pressed to hers, his lips soft against her own as he kisses her like they have all the time in the world, like the fate of that world isn’t being decided at this very moment.

It’s slow and careful, small sipping kisses that are enough right up until they aren’t and they tilt their heads almost in tandem, deepening the kiss as her tongue slips to brush against his.

He shuffles her further into the door, his hand fisting in the shirt at her waist and his prosthetic cushioning her lower back while her hands twine in the locks of his hair.

Like everything with them, it escalates quickly, a give and take that brings his tongue into her mouth only to be pushed back, everything wet and messy and deep, her teeth nipping at his lower lip and his hand slipping under her shirt.

She feels the moment stretch out, suspended and pulled tight as they paw at each other, every bit of sensory input assaulting her at once, the scrape of his stubble against her skin, the pads of his fingers circling her bra clasp, the grit of hair product beneath her palm, and the shift of his erection pressed tight between her legs.

It’s too much for right now, for the night they have ahead of them, but it takes the edge off somehow, even as it ratchets it up, and when they part, foreheads tipped together and hands still clutching as they pant in the space between them, she can see that he looks like she feels, thunderstruck and joyful and so fucking turned on.

She lets go first, shifting him away with a hand on his chest. “Let’s go, Eisenhower, we’ve got to work to do.”

There’s a moment where he considers it, but then he’s backing her into the door once more, tugging her collar away to press his mouth against the join of her neck and shoulder before kissing — _sucking_ — deeply.

When he’s done, when she’s writhed against him and her hips have bucked looking for friction, his lips are red and swollen and he smiles down at her, rubbing a thumb over the mark he’s clearly left.

“Not Eisenhower,” he says. “ _Hoover_.”

&&.

It goes on like that, stolen moments after small victories, his hand on her breast when they take Nevada, her hand on his erection when they take Colorado, escalating steps behind closed doors that compound the high of election night until everything feels electric and raw and bright.

When the announcement comes — the big one — it’s not entirely unexpected. There’s a chorus of cell phones going off moments prior, the confirmation from the TV, a brief second of silence, and then noise, chaos, jubilation unlike anything Emma’s ever heard.

There’s too much work to do right now, such fucking _great_ work, but Killian gooses her ass on the walk back to the office to grab the final version, and it gets her moving even quicker.

They did this, all of them, _together_ , and there’s so much more work to do.

&&.

It’s past breakfast time the next morning before they’re able to step away, Emma following Killian to his apartment — her home, in the eyes of the voter registration logs.

They’re exhausted and running on fumes, the smell of champagne and coffee and fucking _freedom_ clinging tight to their clothes, and she can see the moment they both consider waiting.

And she can also see the moment they both dismiss that thought.

It’s unhurried and easy, the walk to Killian’s bedroom, clothes shed along the way.

The light from the early morning gives everything a hazy, surreal quality, dust mites dancing in the sunbeams, but as Killian stands before her in nothing but his boxer briefs, catching her eye before unclasping the brace of his prostethic, nothing could feel more real.

For as frantic as everything has been tonight, for as frantic as everything has felt for _months_ , this feels slow, and easy, and _right_.

They step toward each other with twin grins, his hand and forearm landing on her hips as his thumb dips beneath the waistband of her underwear.

"It's over," he says.

"You were a good boss," she says, fingers burrowed lightly in the hair on his chest.

"You were a hell of a speechwriter."

"And now we're...what?"

He presses a line of kisses along her collarbone, rumbling his answer against the skin there. "Just two ships passing in the night."

Her hand moves to knot in the hair at the back of his hand, keeping him in place as he works another mark into her skin. "Passing closely, I hope," she says.

And with that, he shifts them toward the bed, Emma landing on her back and scooting toward the pillows as he settles his body over her, kissing her slow and deep.

When he pulls back, it's to kiss lower, nosing down the cups of her bra until she moves to unclasp it and toss it away.

His lips circle her nipple, the free one rolled between his fingertips as her hips shift against his, their underwear still between them, his straining against his erection and hers growing damp.

He nips and sucks and teases, wet, incredible movements that set her arching beneath him in a rhythm she hopes they revisit soon, without cotton between them.

His course shifts so smoothly that she doesn't realize it's changed until his teeth are running at the ridge of her hipbone, his words spoken low and husky over the expanse of her stomach and the rise of her breasts.

"Now where was it you wanted my head earlier?" he says, shifting under his mouth is pressed against the soaked fabric of her underwear. "Was it _here_?"

She nods, thumbs hooking in the elastic around her waist and scooting the cotton down until he takes over and flings her underwear somewhere she can't see.

He's back in a blink, hovering over her core, breath hot against her. “ _Cunt_ ,” he says, drawing the word out, and it’s not the word itself that does it for her, it’s the memory of where they’ve been, and where they’re going, and it all slips by in a rush as he presses his tongue to her clit.

There was no doubt he’d be good at this, but he’s actually fucking _exceptional_ , tonguing her slow and rhythmic, just the right amount of pressure rising and receding as her hips rock into his mouth and her hands tangle in his hair.

It’s when he starts talking that she’s truly done for, words murmured against wet, pink skin,

_you taste so good_

and

_fuck, Emma_

and

 _let me see you come, love_.

He presses a finger into her slowly, gauging her reactions, what she needs, and when she breathes out a plea for more, he obliges, pressing another into her and starting a deep rhythm in tandem to the pressure of his tongue on her clit.

It rises so quickly, her release in sight and breaking over almost in the same moment, until her back arches up and she’s pulled so tightly at his hair that the first thing she says after a string of _oh, fuck, oh, fuck, god_ , is a breathy and sheepish _sorry_.

He chuckles, wiping a damp kiss against her inner thigh as the aftershocks still shudder through her, and she watches with interest as he shuffles back to strip off his boxer briefs before settling once more between her legs.

“Condom?” he says, nodding toward his bedside table, where, presumably, condoms lie.

She shakes her head, wrapping her legs around his hips and pressing his cock against her.

“No, someone made sure I had health insurance, and therefore — birth control.”

“Smart lad,” he says, even as he’s positioning himself at her entrance.

“He’s all right.”

“Oh, darling, he’s more than all right,” and with that, he slides into her, one solid stroke until he’s buried deep and she feels pleasantly full, the thick stretch of him making her wish he’d given her enough time to return the favor with her mouth.

He presses his lips tight to her neck and starts to move, a slow push-pull that’s enough until it isn’t, her legs slipping down until her hands can find his ass, pulling him into her with the force she wants and making him groan.

“That’s it, love, show me what you like,” he’s panting the words, quiet praise and quiet commands, and she adjusts herself enough that her clit is catching on each stroke, the friction pushing her higher and higher as Killian fucks her into the mattress.

“You gonna come again?” he mumbles into her throat, her nails raking down his sweat-slicked back as she nods her agreement. “Good.”

And then he’s driving into her with abandon, both of them too far gone for finesse, and she can tell the moment-before-the-moment for Killian, the way his body stiffens and his voice breaks off into a grunt, the perfect soundtrack to usher in the electricity that zips through every inch of her veins, her body tensing underneath him as he empties himself inside of her.

His breath skips across the skin of her neck, the same place as her hickey from earlier, and it’s enough to stretch the feeling out, even more when he notices and presses his mouth there, sucking at the skin and making her writhe underneath him as her nerves spark and fire.

When he eventually moves to shift off of her, she keeps him there just one more moment more, limbs wrapped around him as she relishes in the solid weight of him.

“God bless America,” he slurs, lips pressing lightly against her shoulder.

“Yeah,” she laughs, and they sleep.

&&.

It takes a little while, paperwork and bureaucracy and the chaos of the American political machine, but she gets a job, they both do, the titles artfully crafted in a way that makes it seem like she doesn't report to him (even if she kind of does).

They’re written out proudly under “occupation” on the lease they both sign.

It's a home, a real one, with someone who loves her, and when she goes to work, that, too, is a home, a big white house, up on a hill.

And there are _always_ breakfast burritos.


End file.
